


Harry Potter: The Radio Demon

by ZTNBooks



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Crossover, Harry Potter is Alastor, Multi, Murder, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Portkeys, Time Travel, Time Turner (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28163181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZTNBooks/pseuds/ZTNBooks
Summary: Harry is thrown back in time due to an unfortunate turn of events during the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. Finding himself in an unfamiliar place in an unfamiliar time, he must learn to cope with his new change in surroundings. Thankfully, the help of a local witch allows him to grow, both in his abilities and as a person.But will these changes affect the way his friends back home view him? And how will they feel when he returns as the infamous Radio Demon, nicknamed Alastor?This work was commissioned by Xandra_Harris.
Relationships: Alastor/Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel), Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel)/Harry Potter, Charlie Magne/Vaggie
Comments: 13
Kudos: 94





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Xandra_Harris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xandra_Harris/gifts).



Harry awoke in an unfamiliar place, his clothes damp and his wand nowhere to be found. He was laying on his back in a body of water, the sounds around him muffled with his head halfway submerged. He fumbled around, his hand slapping water as he felt for something. Anything.

His hand closed over something smooth, small, and cold. He lifted it up to look at it, hearing a slurping noise as he pulled it free from the mud.

Harry sat up and felt the water dripping off of him. He pushed his glasses up as he looked down at the object in his hand. It was covered in mud still, so he dunked it into the water and shook it to dislodge the extra debris. When he lifted it back up, it appeared to be nothing more than an old perfume bottle. The only thing inside it was some of the water that’d seeped in. He turned it over in his hands, wondering if it had some sort of significance, but it just looked like an ordinary old bottle.

This must’ve been the Portkey that the death eater had activated during the battle. The one in the Department of Ministries. Harry wracked his memory as he tried to recall what had happened. The last thing he remembered was someone knocking over the Time-Turners. He and Sirius had been together and he’d looked around at everyone. Then one of the death eaters, though he couldn’t be sure who, had cast the Portus spell on an object. He’d tried to stop them, knowing that they were trying to escape. He’d grabbed for the Portkey and then he’d ended up… here. Wherever here was.

It didn’t matter where he was. He just needed to get back home. He looked down at the Portkey in his hands. It was simple, really. He’d just go back the way he came. This one had to be touch activated, didn’t it? If he threw it up into the air and caught it again, that would count as touching it, right?

Harry threw the Portkey up and caught it. He closed his eyes, ready for that nauseous, sick feeling that always came with Portkey travel. But it never came.

He peeked an eye open, looking down at the bottle in his hands. If not touch-activated, it must’ve been a timed one. That didn’t bode well. It might not ever activate again and, without his wand, there was no way he could re-enchant it. Given this new information, he decided to look around the area and see if he could get a feel for where he was. The least he could do was try and find a way back home by foot. He’d lived in the muggle world long enough that he had some idea of how he could get back home.

Tall trees like none he’d ever seen before loomed high around him. They grew straight out of the shallow water with thick trunks and leafy branches. The water that he was currently sat in was muddy and dark. Moss covered the nearby plants and algae squelched under Harry’s feet when he stood.

His feet were sinking into the mud. His socks were waterlogged and he was grateful for the sun high above. If it hadn’t been so nice and warm, he’d have frozen half to death with the water drenching his clothes. He trudged around the swamp, being careful not to fall into any of the many holes in the bottom of the lake.

The land was nearby and covered in tall grasses, so Harry headed that way. Once he got there, he noticed that even the dirt in this new place was odd. It was more like sand with the way it stuck grainily to the bottoms and sides of his shoes. He paid it no mind. He just needed to find somewhere to sit and rest while he thought over what his next steps would be.

Eventually making it out of the tall grasses and still finding himself in unfamiliar territory, Harry chose to walk in a random direction. He had no clue where he might be headed or even where on Earth he was. But it was a good distraction to walk somewhere. He didn’t want to think about what had happened during the fight. Didn’t want to worry about what might be happening now that he was gone. Blows had been exchanged and the light of it all still flashed before Harry’s eyes when he closed them.

There was nothing he could do but wait, though. Not without his wand, at least. He wished desperately now that he was more like Hermione. She would’ve had no problem whipping up a spell of some sort without a wand. No problem with making a new Portkey. It wasn’t that Harry couldn’t do wandless magic, but more that he didn’t trust his abilities to make a Portkey without a wand. He’d end up in Antarctica with his luck.

Time seemed to pass slower than usual as Harry trekked across this unfamiliar landscape. His hand kept drifting into his pocket to check and make sure the Portkey was still there. It never moved. Never left his pocket. But he still couldn’t help checking. It didn’t mean much, really, but it was the only thing tying him back to that battle; the one he’d been so violently ripped from.

The sun was already starting to set. Harry was mostly dry by this point, his socks still squelching in his shoes a bit. He could feel the grit of the dry, caked-on dirt on his skin. It had dried on him as the swamp water evaporated. He took a moment to try and brush off the bits still clinging to him, but it was a fruitless effort. Everything clung to him one way or another. His clothes were stiff with dried debris and he decided to just accept it with a sigh. He could only do so much.

He hoped he could find civilization soon. The death eater wouldn’t have made a Portkey to the middle of nowhere, after all. There had to be something around here. Whatever it was, Harry would find it. Then he’d make his way to a train station or something of the like and find his way back to Hogwarts. He could only hope the Order of the Phoenix was holding things together without him.

Just as Harry thought it, as if summoned by his thoughts, a road appeared. A dirt road, mind you, but a road nonetheless. Harry nearly skipped in joy over to the road. His feet were aching at this point but he couldn’t be bothered to care about that. He was too excited to find proof that there was someone living nearby. He followed the road until the sun was starting to set. Orange rays of light cast everything in a warm amber glow. As beautiful as it was, it also meant that Harry would soon be walking in the dark. 

He tried to hurry his steps, but his legs hurt from all the walking and he was still irritated by the dirt stuck to him. His toes were itching from his wet socks. He debated taking off his socks and shoes but decided that the protection they provided was more important than the irritation they caused.

Harry was just about ready to give up and collapse into a snoring pile in the dirt. He’d had a very, very long day already. This mishap didn’t help at all with that. Then he noticed something that made him reconsider his decision to sleep in the open. A light in the distance. No, scratch that. A collection of lights. Like a city.

Someone would have thought he was on fire with how fast he ran. Dirt kicked up in great clouds behind him as he sprinted. The light grew brighter, separating out and clarifying into hundreds of tiny lights. Harry was running out of breath. He was breathing in the clouds of dust and coughing. Yet he couldn’t care, not when the possibility of getting home was so close.

Then he was in the city. In the thick of it, standing on a cobbled road covered in dirt and sweat and looking wholly out of place. A horse-drawn carriage passed by him and he nodded at the driver as he stepped back from the street. Then he blinked once. Twice. A horse-drawn carriage…?

He looked around. Something was odd. He couldn’t quite place his finger on it, but something just wasn’t right. Now that he was really looking around, he noticed that the infrastructure here was similar to the wizarding world. Gas lamps lit up the streets as he walked down them. The roads were all paved with brick and stone. Or they were dirt roads packed down by hundreds of feet and countless carriage wheels. It stunk to high heaven with the stench of horse manure. And probably human excrement as well, if Harry was honest.

The further Harry walked into the city, the more people he saw. And the more confused he became. As much as this city looked like the wizarding world, the people here did not. They were all dressed in old-timey looking clothes. The women wore long dresses with scarves and shawls. The men looked dapper with tall hats and fitted coats. As he walked past them, they gave him odd stares. He looked out of place in his jacket and casual clothing. 

Was there a costume party of some sort? Perhaps it was a city full of people who liked to dress in vintage outfits. Harry couldn’t tell, but he wasn’t too concerned about it either way. He needed to find a train station.

He looked around, locating the nearest gentleman and making a beeline for him.

“Excuse me, sir?” he inquired.

The man startled and looked up. “Yes? How can I help you, lad?”

Now it was Harry’s turn to be surprised because the man had an accent. An American accent. He shook off his shock, though. He had more important things to worry about. “Can you point me to the nearest train station?”

“You’re a bit lost, aren’t you? Must be new around here.”

“I am,” Harry hurried to say. He didn’t have time for this. Who knew what was happening back at the Department of Mysteries? He’d wasted enough time wandering around the wilderness today. 

“Well, if you head down this street here and take a left, you should come upon it soon enough. You weren’t far off at all.”

Harry nodded at the man. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Do well not to get lost now.”

Harry bid him goodbye and started down the street in the direction he’d been instructed. He took a left where he’d been directed to and was immediately blown away by the sheer number of people milling about. Carriages clogged the road up ahead and people milled about in and around the streets. He’d heard the music as he approached, but now it was even louder. A humdrum of different noises as dozens of musicians played to outdoor diners sitting at restaurants.

He wove his way in between the crowd, trying not to bump into anyone but ending up unsuccessful. He had no doubt left more than a few people with dirt on their clothes. The stares of everyone bore into him as he forged a path forward. 

The train station was visible up ahead now. He could even see the tracks behind it and he hurried to reach it. 

He was panting hard when he got to the desk of the train station. The attendant gave him an odd look when he noticed the out-of-breath teenager in dirty clothes.

“I’d like one ticket to London please,” Harry informed him.

The attendant blinked at him once. Twice. “London.”

“Yes, London.”

“Never had someone ask to go to London before. Awfully small town.” The attendant shook off his shock and went back to getting the tickets Harry would need.

“I’m not sure ‘small’ would be the way to describe it,” Harry said, rolling his eyes a little at the whole interaction.

“London, Arkansas? The population there is scarcely two hundred people.”

Harry furrowed his brow. “London, Arkansas? Why the bloody hell do you think I want to go to the states?”

The attendant blinked at him again in that owlish manner. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, sir, but you’re already in the states. It’s much easier to assume you’re headed for London, Arkansas than to assume you’re daft enough to think a train can take you over the Atlantic.”

“What?”

“Surely you must’ve come here by boat, sir. Your accent gives you away. Though I didn’t think you could seriously mean London, England.”

Harry gripped the edge of the counter, head spinning. He was in the States. Why- Why would the death eater make a Portkey here? He’d seen the signs. The American accents. The unfamiliar architecture. The odd landscape and everything else was a clear sign of where he was. But he hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself and now he had no choice but to face the facts.

“Where exactly am I?” Harry asked.

The poor attendant was looking at him like he had said he wanted to go into the Forbidden Forest for fun. “Baton Rouge, Louisiana, of course.”

“And- And what is the date today?” He had to confirm his other suspicion. There was something all too wrong about this entire situation.

“June 18th, 1900.”

“1900…” Harry repeated.

“Yes, sir.”

He was light-headed. There must’ve been some mistake, some weird mind trick being played on him. It all made sense, though. The clothes. The gas lamps. The horse-drawn carriages and the people giving him weird looks as he walked about in his t-shirt and jeans. 

How did this happen? Harry wracked his brain for an answer.

Then it struck him. The Time-Turners. It was the only reason something like this could’ve happened. And if it was because of the Time-Turners that he was stuck here, he would have no way home. He couldn’t time travel. Making a Portkey or trying to travel back to London would be useless because even if he did make it back there, there’d be nothing for him. The battle didn’t occur until 1996. At this point, he wouldn’t even live to see it. 

And what if he showed up back in London and asked to use their Time-Turners? He’d be turned down for sure. He had no pull here, in this time. He wasn’t the boy who lived anymore. He was just a scared teen with nowhere to go and nothing he could do to save himself. 

“Excuse me.” A voice behind him pulled his attention back to the present. He whirled around. A woman stood behind him, a puzzled expression on her face. “I need to buy a ticket, please.”

Harry nodded, stepping away from the counter and the confused attendant. He needed to think. Needed to figure out some way to get back home. Maybe he could explain to the Ministry of Magic what had happened. If he laid out everything clearly, there was a chance they’d believe him. There were ways for them to make sure he was telling the truth. He just had to get to London.

“That’ll be three dollars,” the attendant said behind him to the woman.

Harry froze. There was a problem he hadn’t considered. He had no money. There was no vault in the bank for him full of his parents’ money. His parents hadn’t even been born yet. How would he get back home?

This was going to be a lot harder than he thought.

He headed back out onto the streets since he had nowhere else to go. The odd looks he received didn’t puzzle him anymore. He knew why people were looking at him like that. Of course he was out of place in his modern clothes. His accent certainly didn’t help him blend in either. 

“Fortunes! Get your fortunes told here!” Someone was yelling on the side of the street.

“Take your voodoo back to New Orleans!” A passerby jabbed back with a loud laugh.

Harry looked over with bored indifference. He didn’t have anything better to do than to look on with disinterest.

It was an old woman in front of a small shop with a curtain for a door. She was covered in jewelry from head to toe and wore a thin scarf around her head. Her skin was dark brown and wrinkled, hands looking fragile and scary, almost.

“You!” Suddenly she was pointing at Harry, her finger shaking.

“Me?!”

The woman made a “come hither” motion at him to beckon him forward.

He didn’t have any reason not to, so he ambled towards the old lady.

She grabbed for him as soon as he was within her reach, pulling him even closer. He had to lean down to let her whisper in his ear, as she seemed so eager to do.

“You’ve got magic in you, isn’t that right?”

Harry jerked back from her. “What?”

The woman laughed. “I can sense it, boy. You’re not from here.”

“H-How do you know that?”

“Your accent, of course.”

“No, I meant how did you know I have, well, you know.”

The woman smiled, showing off yellowed teeth. “Magic? It’s because I have it too.”

Harry gave her a once-over. She didn’t look like any witch or wizard he’d seen before. But if she was telling the truth… she might have a wand. Might be able to help him get to London. 

“You’re a witch?” Harry asked softly.

The woman guffawed. “It’s Lousiana, my boy! There’s hardly anyone who’s not some sort of magical around here.” She looked him over. “You look like you’ve been through the wringer. Do you need help?”

“I would be unbelievably grateful for some help,” Harry admitted.

The woman nodded sagely. “Come in then. I think I can help you. Maybe even teach you a thing or two while we’re at it.”

Harry took one look around his surroundings and, realizing he had nothing to lose, he followed her into the small shop. He was in an unfamiliar place and an unfamiliar time, but things weren’t looking all too bad.


	2. Chapter 2

Her name was Nnena, the old woman. She was shorter than Harry, if only by a little. But she was so full of life and energy, always buzzing about. 

That first night she’d invited him in, she’d offered him a place to stay. She didn’t know him at all. She’d been able to tell he had magic, but that was about it. He was just a dirty stranger that she had pulled off the street, yet she offered him a home.

He’d explained what had happened to him and, as unbelievable as it was, she believed him.

Nnena had grown up in a house full of witches. They practiced magic without wands. Without spells sometimes. Harry was fascinated. It was something he’d hardly if ever, seen. Her practice involved potions and ingredients. Spell jars that worked based on energy alone. Nnena would do around each morning shaking her protective spell jars to keep them working. Soon, she started to designate the task to Harry.

He began to lose track of how long he’d been living with Nnena. She ran a fortune-telling and spell shop. Said they were all the rage over in New Orleans, but she couldn’t keep up with the newer and younger witches there. So she’d moved here to Baton Rouge. Most people laughed at it, but there were a handful of regulars who came in. Those regulars would refer their friends to Nnena too.

Things weren’t easy for her, though. Harry hadn’t grown up learning American history, but he knew about segregation. And now he was living in it. Nnena sent him out to run errands for her when she couldn’t. He’d had to adjust to this new life. Figure out how things worked here and what the social norms of the time were. Things weren’t all too different from what he was used to, but it was still a bit of a cultural adjustment.

Over time, Harry began to pick up on her type of magic. It was more primal than anything he’d learned at Hogwarts. She taught him about the Earth and about himself. About how magic wasn’t just something he could do, but something that was inside him, as much a part of him as his heart or his soul was.

“I don’t know how to do magic without a wand,” Harry confided to her.

She laughed at him, a big boisterous laugh that he hadn’t expected out of someone with such a delicate frame. “A wand? My boy, nobody does magic with a wand. Not real magic, that is.”

“What do you mean?” Harry asked.

“Unless you’re putting on a show for a client, there’s no need to be waving a stick around.”

That went against everything Harry had been taught. “Magic is easier to channel through a wand, though,” he reasoned.

Nnena waved him off dismissively. “You are the wand. You don’t need a fancy piece of wood to channel magic for you.” 

Harry shifted in his chair, taking the sandwich Nnena offered him. The bread was dry and nearly stale now. As great of a witch as Nnena was, she didn’t get paid much at the moment. Not enough to sustain both of them for long, at least. Harry knew he’d have to do something to help out eventually, but for the time being, Nnena insisted he needed to adjust to the culture of the time.

“I don’t understand that. What do you mean when you say that I am the wand?” Harry took a bite of his sandwich, realizing just how much he missed the food at Hogwarts.

“Magic is all around us. It is your job to channel it. There’s no need to point it through some little stick as well!”

Her logic was a bit flawed there. Harry knew better than to argue with her. The woman knew what she was about and there was no saying “no” to her when she had her mind made up.

It made some semblance of sense, though. Harry wasn’t opposed to learning magic without a wand. He knew a smidge of it already. There wasn’t any harm in trying to learn more.

So he just nodded at her and soon their magic lessons began.

Harry’s job began not long after that, either. He’d found a job as a radio co-host. It wasn’t bad work, though he’d had to adjust his manner of speaking a bit to fit in with the Atlantic accent most radio hosts possessed. It wasn’t too difficult to do and he enjoyed his line of work.

So during the day, Harry would head into the radio station and talk all sorts of nonsense with his co-hosts while they played music or had a morning talk hour. They’d sometimes even just read the newspaper aloud if there was nothing else planned. Harry began to enjoy it a lot more than he’d anticipated. This was a technology he was familiar with. He’d had a radio under the stairs with him back when he lived with the Dursleys. It’d been his only friend sometimes, that old beat up thing. He liked to pretend the radio hosts then were his companions having a nice chat as they sat across from him. Pretend that he wasn’t some poor orphaned boy living under the stairs at his aunt and uncle’s place.

He hoped he was that voice for someone. That someone could hear him speaking and feel comforted. Or that the music he played could help them.

Then, after his shift at the radio station was over, he’d head home to find Nnena waiting for him with a new spell. Or a new recipe. Or a new line of questions about the life he used to live back in the latter half of the century. Harry didn’t mind the questions, though they did make him sad about the fact that he could be missing out on so much. There was no way of knowing what was going on in the “present” day. Or rather, the time he’d come from.

It wasn’t worth pondering over. No matter how much he worried about it, there was nothing he could do to fix it. So he resigned himself to not thinking about it.

Nnena was everything he’d never had in a mother. His aunt had certainly never doted on him the way that Nnena had been doting on him in the short while they had known one another. Harry adored her the same way he did, say, Professor McGonagall. 

There wasn’t a way to classify it, really, but Harry knew that he cared about Nnena and she cared about him. And he was happy to finally feel that way about someone. To have a motherly influence in his life. It was something he’d been lacking for so long.

“You have to feel it in your belly,” Nnena instructed him. She poked him in the belly with a wad of spices tied together. They wafted a strong smell in the air, one that Harry wasn’t sure he was a fan of. They weren’t for magic. Not really. Nnena claimed they had healing benefits, which he didn’t doubt, but she wasn’t making any spell jars out of them.

“I’m trying,” Harry grit out. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the magic within him, but he couldn’t find a way to get it out. He’d only ever learnt magic with a wand, yet he knew wandless magic was possible. He’d done it a few times. Seen Hermione do it. And Nnena did it every day. So why did he struggle so much with it?

Nnena busied herself with tidying up the shop. In reality, she wasn’t doing much more than rearranging the piles of trinkets where they sat on the shelves. Harry knew she was doing it more for his benefit than anything. He worked better when her full attention wasn’t on him, so she pretended to be busy while waiting for him to work.

Harry sighed, opening his eyes. “I need a wand.”

Nnena whipped around, hurling the bundle of spices at him and hitting him squarely in the chest. “You don’t need a wand! Do you think my ancestors used wands? Or your ancestors for that matter?”

“There’s got to be some way to get one! You can’t be serious when you say there are no wand makers around here.”

Nnena threw her hands up in the air. “There are no wand makers! Not a single soul in Louisiana uses a wand!”

“This is impossible!” Harry groaned.

“Accio,” Nnena said as she waved her hand and sent the bundle of spices flying back to her out of Harry’s lap. “You are the one that’s impossible,” she grumbled. “Learning magic with a wand before you learn to do it with your hands,” she shook her head, “It’s like learning to swim before you can even crawl.”

It wasn’t Harry’s fault that he didn’t know how to do wandless magic. He’d been taught this way by everyone at Hogwarts. Nnena knew this, so Harry wasn’t sure why she was being so harsh to him.

She didn’t say anything else to him and the day proved unsuccessful.

It wasn’t for lack of trying that Harry couldn’t master wandless magic. The way that the magic moved through him without a wand was just different. He had to conjure up more of it to get the same result. It felt like going from scooping water with a cup to trying to scoop with a colander. The magic slipped from him, slippery as a snake. And Harry had had a bit too much experience with snakes. 

Nnena was a patient teacher, even if her words were sometimes a bit harsh. And soon, with her guiding hand to help him, he began to improve at wandless magic. He felt like a student again, trying for the first time to work simple spells.

He was starting to understand what Nnena had meant when she said magic was all around him. He could almost feel it vibrating in his bones.

Things were starting to look up. It’d been nearly half a year since he’d washed up in a random bog in the middle of nowhere. Now he was starting to relearn magic, had a steady job at the radio station and had a good, established life with Nnena. She was a mother figure to him and he was genuinely starting to enjoy his life in Baton Rouge.

The fight back in the Department of Mysteries had been nearly forgotten. Of course, Harry was worried about what the outcome of that fight had been. And he wished he knew. There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t think about it. Yet he knew there was nothing he could do. Not now when he was trapped in the past. His only hope would be to figure out how to get back to his time. Hopefully training and becoming better at magic now would make him more useful in the fight to come. He chose to look at this time as an opportunity to improve his skills. Things happened for a reason and Harry could only hope that this was the universe giving him a chance to get better before the fight continued.

The more time that passed, the more Harry began to enjoy his radio job too. He’d never considered something like this back when he was “the boy who lived”. He’d had more pressing things to worry about. Hadn’t had time to think about what he wanted to do with his life or who he wanted to be. His whole life had been planned out for him from the moment Voldemort stepped into his nursery.

Now he had a chance to see what he was good at and what he liked to do. And the truth was that he was good at being a radio host. He didn’t mind the work, either, In fact, he kind of liked it.

“Good morning, Baton Rouge. I’m your morning host, Alastor, here to give you the daily weather forecast.”

Harry had chosen the name Alastor in order to keep his true identity secret. He didn’t need all of these people knowing about him. Not that most of them would be alive to see his time. It would still be best if he didn’t use his real name, though. It could lead to complications in the future.

“We’re looking at sunny skies for the most part with a chance of rain in the afternoon. So if I were you, I’d pack a parasol.” His accent had changed, too. He’d adopted the Atlantic accent so commonly used by others in the industry. It wasn’t hard to pick up on, given that it was only slightly different from his own accent. 

There was something so novel about radio. Harry couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It wasn’t like they didn’t have the radio in his own time. Nobody at Hogwarts listened to the radio, though. Harry had listened relentlessly to it when he lived with the Dursleys, if only for the sole fact that it made him feel less lonely. Though he had met Ron and Hermione at Hogwarts and didn’t have a need to listen to it any longer. 

“Here’s today’s first song,” Harry said. He dropped the needle onto the record and let the sound flood the airwaves. 

There was a lot of time to think when he was on the job. Most of the time they’d let the music play and just had to change the record once in a while. Harry liked this part of the job, too. It was nice, really. And he could feel a newfound love for radio blossoming inside him, the same way he’d felt a new kind of love for Nnena within him.

Everything was not peachy, though. It never was in this stupid world of theirs. Because right when Harry thought he was starting to get used to this new life of his, things went south. Nothing could ever be good for long when it came to him. It was like a curse, one equal to Voldemort’s curse on him. 

Nnena and he sat down for dinner and Nnena said grace. Harry didn’t much believe in God or any sort of being like that. After all, if there was a God, why would he have let such awful things happen to Harry’s family?

Harry didn’t dwell on things of that sort. But he wasn’t opposed to Nnena’s belief in a higher power.

If there was a God, Harry would soon lose all hope in him. Because the door burst open at that moment and revealed a tall man standing in the doorway. He was wearing a long coat and a tall hat.

Nnena stood to face him. “I’m sorry, but the shop is closed.”

The man shook off his coat. “I’m not here for your services.”

“Are you a messenger?” Harry asked.

The man didn’t answer. He threw his coat over the couch and started walking towards Nnena. She backed up, suddenly wary of the strange man in her home. 

Harry put himself in front of her, getting a better look at the man. He was white, had a brown mustache, and dark eyes. Harry didn’t recall seeing him before as a customer of the store. Now that he was looking closer, the man had an almost dirty look to him, like he’d been walking outside through the mud and dust for a while.

Harry couldn’t quite put his hand on what was wrong with the man but he was getting a bad feeling. How could he not get a bad feeling? It was a strange man who had come into their shop after hours and was now refusing to leave. He didn’t look like the kind of person who would be there just for a talk or something of the sort.

“I’m here about something you told my wife,” the man said, spitting his words out at Nnena. He didn’t seem fazed by Harry’s presence there.

“Your wife…” Harry repeated, confused. “Who is your wife?”

He ignored Harry again, continuing on with his spiel. “You and your idiotic fake magic. Your voodoo. You’re the one who told her to leave me, aren’t you?”

“I have never told one of my clients such a thing,” Nnena said.

The man stepped even closer until he was looming over both Harry and Nnena. He was a good head taller than Harry, making him tower over Nnena like a giant.

“You said something to her. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have left. I know she comes to see you every week for some sort of… I have no idea what.” The man gestured wildly as he spoke.

“Is he talking about Alice?” Harry asked Nnena quietly.

The man finally looked at Harry. “You know her! What did you say to her?!”

Nnena was clutching onto the back of Harry’s shirt now like she wanted to pull him away from the intruder. But she was too strong for that. Wouldn’t back down if she didn’t have to.

“She came to me for help with her wounds,” Nnena said hushedly. Harry could feel the anger rolling off of her. “Ones I presume to have been inflicted by you. I do herbal healing, you know. Her injuries didn’t line up with her stories. I never pressed her for the real reasons behind them, even though I should have.”

“What are you insinuating?!” He demanded.

“What do you think?” Harry challenged. “It’s not her fault your wife is leaving. This sounds like something that you caused on your own.”

“Why you little-” He charged at them suddenly and Harry yanked Nnena out of the way with him.

The man wasn’t about to give up, though. He turned, scanning the room to see where the two of them had gone. He set his eyes on them and lunged again. Harry managed to dodge him but wasn’t able to pull Nnena out of the way this time.

He watched in horror as the man wrapped his hands around Nnena’s neck. She was so small, Harry had no doubt he could crush her windpipe with a well-timed squeeze of his hand. He didn’t want that. Didn’t want to see it or even think about it. 

“Let her go!” Harry cried.

“You’ll pay for what you’ve done, you witch,” the man growled. He began to tighten his grip on Nnena’s neck.

Harry panicked, every spell he knew flying through his brain.

Nnena groaned, frantically trying to push the hands off of her neck, but she was too weak. Her eyes began to roll back into her head.

Seeing her like that snapped something in Harry. The only mother he’d known and here she was getting choked in front of him. He raised his hands, pointing them at the man, and uttered words he never thought he would. “Avada Kedavra.”

Nnena’s sudden gasp and subsequent coughing filled the room. The sound of a body hitting the floor followed moments after.

Harry stood there, shocked by what he’d done. He looked down at his own hands, terrified of the power he now possessed. He’d been doing wandless magic, but now he’d gone as far as to use a killing curse. The very one that’d been used to try to kill him and had killed his own mother.

He didn’t know what had come over him. Something about seeing Nnena in pain had trigged him. This woman had done nothing but help him and love him. She’d listened to him, even if she didn’t understand everything he was saying. Clothed him, fed him, guided him through this confusing time that he had no idea about. Then she’d been blamed for a client’s husband leaving him? When it was clear that it was his own fault? Harry couldn’t stand to see that. She didn’t deserve that.

“What did you do?” Nnena asked. She was staring down at the man. She lifted a hand to rub at her neck. 

“I- I killed him.” Harry’s hands were trembling. “He was trying to hurt you. I didn’t know what to do.”

Nnena kicked at the man, shifting his body to the side. He was dead, no doubt about it. 

“You saved me, Harry.”

He didn’t feel like a hero. He felt dirty. He felt like a criminal. 

He dug a hole in the backyard that night. When the police showed up, hearing that the man had last been seen near their shop, he used Obliviate to erase their memories. It felt so wrong, but at the same time, he’d done it to protect Nnena. He wouldn’t say that he’d change his actions if he had a chance to. Nnena was the most important thing to him at the moment and he wasn’t going to let anything bad happen to her just for fear of killing somebody. As terrible as that sounded, she was the most important thing to him at that moment and he’d do anything to protect her. Even something as heinous as committing murder and covering it up.

Nnena didn’t bring it up again. Harry didn’t want to broach the subject either. What would he even say? “So, Nnena, about that guy I killed…” 

There was no way he could come out saying something like that. No way for him to not say anything either, though. It was weighing on his mind, this guilt for his actions. Not only for his actions but for the origin of them. The killing curse used by Voldemort. He’d used that exact same one to kill this man and he felt unbelievably bad about it.

Nnena didn’t understand his feelings about the situation. She hadn’t grown up fearing “He Who Must Not Be Named”. But she knew enough to understand that Harry was justified in his hatred of Voldemort. 

Harry really tried not to think about it. He carried on hosting the radio station with his usual cheer and happiness, but he felt it under his skin. That itching, awful feeling of being a criminal. The weight of what he’d done sitting on his shoulders.

“You saved me,” Nnena liked to remind him.

“I used a dirty spell to do it,” Harry grit out.

Nnena waved him off. “You’re repurposing a nasty spell and making it good again.”

Harry wasn’t sold on her ideology, but it was a nicer thought than anything he’d been thinking about himself. It wasn’t like he planned on using the spell again. 

Or so he’d thought.

The more he considered it, the more he realized that he might’ve found a calling for himself. Here he was in an unfamiliar place in an unfamiliar time. Maybe he shouldn’t be messing with fate or things of that sort. Mucking up the future with his current actions. 

He couldn’t help it. He wanted to create a world where Nnena was safe to practice her witchcraft without being persecuted for being who she was. Not only did she live in a world where she’d be persecuted for being a practicing witch, but she was discriminated against because of her skin tone. It wasn’t fair. She couldn’t control either of those things, but she always seemed to get the short end of the stick when it came to how others treated her.

People would blame her for all sorts of things, even if she had nothing to do with it. It could be a thunderstorm and people would look at her and blame the witch.

Harry felt that overwhelming need to protect Nnena again when yet another man showed up in front of her store. At least this time he didn’t burst into the house as the first guy had done.

He was mad about something or other, Harry couldn’t tell you what it was if he tried. The guy didn’t try to hurt Nnena, but he did give her a wicked nasty glare as he left her store.

“What’s up with him?” Harry asked, watching the man leave.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Nnena replied. She waved off Harry’s question. “I don’t care what other people think. I am a witch for the people who need my services and nobody else.”

Harry nodded thoughtfully. Nnena was a helpful witch. So what was he? He wanted to be helpful too. Yet he wasn’t sure how. It felt like the only way he’d helped anyone since coming to this time and place was when he’d killed the guy for Nnena. That wasn’t necessarily helpful or something he could do again.

Or was it?

There was a whole host of nasty people in this world that needed justice served to them. And Harry had been good at it. He’d been too good at it. Had waved his hands and said a word and made a man drop dead. And afterward, too, he’d been great at covering up the murder.

What had he done to help people back in his own time? Plenty of things, actually, but had any of them had a long-lasting effect? Harry wasn’t sure. He’d stopped the school from being overrun by a basilisk. And from Voldemort and Death Eaters and all sorts of undesirables. But all of that was for slightly selfish reasons as well. The basilisk would’ve paralyzed him. Voldemort would have done even worse things to him than simply paralyze him. And the Death Eaters would not have hesitated to gut him like a fish.

Now, without the weight of being the perfect student and “the boy who lived”, Harry might be able to explore what actually makes him useful to this world. Why was he “the boy who lived” and not anybody else? 

Time passed. Years of him living the same way with Nnena. Continuing to practice magic and work at the radio station. Years of Nnena running her small shop.

Harry knew it wouldn’t last forever. Nothing did, after all, and Nnena was already old and frail when he’d met her.

She died in her sleep. Painless and quick. Harry was the one to find her the next morning and the one to arrange for her funeral. He was the last one standing there over her open casket, looking down at the only woman he could call a mother figure.

If you asked him now, he couldn’t have told you how long it’d been since he’d shown up. He’d stopped counting somewhere in the years. Maybe on the one Christmas where Nnena had woven him a magical protective scarf. Or one of Nnena’s birthdays when they’d baked a cake together. He had no idea when he’d stopped caring about his life back in London. It had stopped mattering to him eventually.

Now Nnena was gone and Harry had no idea what he’d do with his life.

Something inside him snapped that day, as he stared down at Nnena’s body. He’d never wanted her to get hurt. But even he wasn’t strong enough to protect her from the laws of nature. However… he was strong enough to protect other people from the scum of the earth. He was strong enough to defeat people like Voldemort. Evil, twisted, awful people. Nnena had called him her hero and now he was determined to be that hero. Not just for her, but for everyone in Baton Rouge. 

Alastor; The Radio Demon. It’s how they came to know him in hell. How did he get here again? Oh yes, by murdering people. Criminals, drug lords, mafia bosses, and murderers. Perhaps it was wrong of him to do. But keeping Baton Rogue safe had become his mission after Nnena’s death.

Sure, maybe he’d snapped and went crazy at one point. Might’ve cannibalized a handful of people. Could you blame him? Murdering people made you go insane if you weren’t already insane. Either you were crazy and you killed people or you killed people and went crazy. Harry had been the latter. It was worth it, though, to get those sorts of people out of the world. 

He was a strong demon. Stronger than most anyone given his ability to do magic. Conquering the demons here gave him the same rush that killing had. He soon ran out of demons to conquer, save for the king of hell himself, who he wasn’t interested in usurping.

He’d been killed by a pack of dogs, as stupid as it sounded. Not necessarily mauled to death by them or anything, but he’d been attacked. The medical abilities of the early 1900s weren’t the best and his wounds ended up getting infected. He’d died without anyone suspecting his crimes. But heaven and hell didn’t care if anyone knew whether or not you were a criminal. So Harry had ended up here in hell.

He’d tried to look for Nnena the first few days here. He knew he wouldn’t find her, but it was worth trying. She’d done nothing but helped people her whole life. She’d helped Harry. And in his roundabout way, he hoped he’d carried on her legacy by helping the people of Baton Rouge. Eliminated the scum from the city so the rest of the citizens could live in peace.

He’d managed to make it back to London in his lifetime. But the Ministry had been unable to help him. Time-Turners couldn’t send him decades into the future. That’s not how they worked. So he’d resigned himself to finding a way back from the afterlife.

It was 1996 now. Harry had died who knows how long ago. But he knew that now was the time he needed to go back to the human world to see what had happened during the battle at the Department of Mysteries. Going back to the mortal world was looking possible now.

He looked up at the sign above him. “I.M.P.” Perfect. He pushed his way through the door and found himself facing a bored-looking werewolf receptionist.

“I need to speak with your boss,” he said with a grin splitting his face. 

“Through those doors,” she said with a bored pop of her bubblegum.

Harry followed her instructions, finding himself face to face with the boss of I.M.P. He smiled brightly down at the little imp.

“You’re that Radio Demon, aren’t you?!” the imp asked excitedly, “How can we help you?”

“I need to go back to the mortal realm,” his smile grew wider, “Please.”


	3. Chapter 3

Blitzo blinked at him. “Well now, that’s a tall order.”

Harry kept his wicked grin plastered on his face. “Are you saying you can’t take me?” He tapped the end of his staff on the ground, eyebrow twitching as he stared down at the little demon.

Blitzo was quick to correct himself, panic filling his face. “I mean, it’s just that there’s so much red tape surrounding the human world already. And it’s no easy feat for us to get there. Not to mention the fact that we’re not supposed to be going there in the first place. And-”

One side of Harry’s mouth twitched up higher, giving him a crooked, angry smile.

The expression made Blitzo freeze. Then, with a squeak, he said, “Okay. We can take you to the human world. No problem. No problem at all.”

Harry’s face smoothed over, returning to his usual grin. “Thank you. I’ll be sure to pay you handsomely. When do we depart?”

The imp ruffled through a stack of papers, mouth screwing up with focus. “Well, that depends on where you want to go. Because we’ve got a job in Peru today, but I doubt there’s where you’re wanting to go. In which case, the earliest we could take you is tomorrow morning.”

“Eight o’clock sharp,” Harry said. 

Blitzo paused. “Eight? Tomorrow? My employees don’t start work until nine in the-”

“Eight,” Harry insisted. He stepped closer to the desk, using his height advantage to threaten the imp.

“Eight it is,” Blitzo squeaked.

Harry nodded his agreement. “I will see you tomorrow… Blitz-o.” He read the imp’s name off of his desk nameplate.

“It’s pronounced ‘Blitz’,” Blitzo corrected him.

“Blitzo,” Harry repeated after, pronouncing it correctly this time. “I will see you tomorrow, Blitzo. I look forward to doing business with you.”

With that, he turned and left the room, brushing past the I.M.P. employees in the waiting room. He waved politely to the receptionist and she, in turn, threw him a bored glance. 

Hell raged on outside the I.M.P. office. Literal hell, given where he was. It didn’t phase him. He’d been here for a while now. Had seen the worst of the worst that this place had to offer.

Thankfully, most of the lesser demons gave him room to move about. They feared him, as they should, and Harry wouldn’t have it any other way. He didn’t languish in the respect they afforded him. In the fear that his presence caused or the power that he held. Yet he didn’t hesitate to acknowledge that he did have power here. He just wasn’t eager to let it go to his head.

It was survival of the fittest here in hell. And Harry had had no sympathy for the lowlifes on Earth when he’d been alive. It would be asking a lot of him to care about the lowlifes now that they were here in hell with him. If he had his way, he’d crush them all beneath his feet. That was possible, he supposed, but he wasn’t looking to create more problems for himself. No matter how many of them he killed, more would show up. It would be an endless battle against them.

He retired for the night, feeling uneasy about his plans for the following day. He’d learned how to suppress his nerves over the years. Learned not to give in to the anxiety that filled him when scary actions had to be taken. After all, he didn’t have any room for error when he was killing. If he messed up, he’d be the one dead. Look at him now, though. He’d died, through no fault of his own, but he’d still died. 

Even after all these years of trying to practically train the anxiety out of himself, he still hadn’t perfected the skill. He was nervous to see everyone again. Nervous to know what they’d think of him as he was now. He wasn’t the same person anymore. How many years had it been since he’d last seen any of them? He had no idea. He’d waited for this day, had wanted to go back to the mortal world the second he knew he could. But that wouldn’t have worked. Something about time laws or whatever. He had to wait until after he’d disappeared from the human world. That way there would be no overlap of living human Harry and dead demon Harry.

He’d wanted to go yesterday evening, but Blitzo hadn’t been able to do that. So here he was, at seven fifty-five in the morning, waiting for the imp and his little team. 

They arrived right on the dot, dragging their feet and yawning. The little male imp, Blitzo’s employee, looked about five seconds away from dropping onto the ground and snoring. If it weren’t for his female companion holding him up, he actually might have passed out right then and there. 

“Sir, I’d like you to meet my employees,” Blitzo began. He gestured to the two imps. “Millie, our weapons expert, and Moxxie. Her husband.”

“Blitzo-” Millie began to raise a protest, but Blitzo cut her off.

“Anyway, let’s get a move on. I have… plans… for later today. Wouldn’t want to be late for that.” Blitzo grimaced but quickly smoothed his features out again. “Okay, here we go.”

Getting to the human world was much easier than Harry had expected. Well, not that he had to do much work aside from seeking the imps out.

It was warm, sunny, and bright. June 19th, 1996. Harry took in a deep breath, feeling the air hiss through his lungs. It smelled clean. Cleaner than the air in Hell, at least. No stench of overpowering cologne. No smell of things burning. No screams filling the air. And it was so, so sunny. So much brighter than Hell.

“Here we are, sir,” Moxie mumbled from where he was still slumped in his wife’s arms. “What would you like us to do now?”

“You are free to come along,” Harry said, “But I need to speak to some people. When I have finished, I will let you know.” Blitzo looked unhappy with that idea, opening his mouth to say something, so Harry tacked on, “I will pay you for your time. Quite handsomely.”

That seemed to appease the imp, and he closed his mouth, nodding happily. Then he pressed something into Harry’s hand.

“What is this?” Harry asked. He turned it over and found it was a pager. “Does it work?”

Blitzo shrugged. “It’s a pager from Hell. It’ll work. Let us know when you’re done with your business and we’ll meet back here.”

Harry nodded. Then, without another word, he left.

They’d appeared on the hills just outside of Hogwarts, so the trek to the school wasn’t far at all. Using a frost spell that Nnena had taught him, he was able to easily create a path over the lake surrounding the school.

It was just as he remembered it. Of course it would be, seeing as this was only the day after he’d gone missing. Students milled about the courtyard, many of them sending him odd looks. He simply smiled back at them, as he was known to do.

“You there!” A voice cried from behind him. “Who are you?”

Harry turned, his smile growing ever wider as he took in the person behind him. “Professor McGonagall. How nice it is to see you again.”

The professor looked confused for a moment as her eyes raked over him. Then, recognition hit her. She lowered her wand, wide eyes coming up to Harry’s face, then flitting up to the scar on his forehead. “Harry?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Then, before he could process what was happening, he was engulfed in a hug. Either she was shorter than he remembered, or he’d grown a bit while he’d been gone. He hugged her back, feeling a sense of warmth and comfort he hadn’t felt since before Nnena had died.

She pulled away, giving him a once over. “What happened to you, dear?”

“It’s a long story,” Harry replied with an aborted laugh. “I’d like to speak to you and the headmaster if that’s alright. And anybody who was with me yesterday at the department.”

Professor McGonagall nodded, her hands still resting idly on Harry’s shoulders. “I’ll arrange for everybody to meet in Headmaster Dumbledore’s office. You go on up there first.”

She pulled him into one last hug, not that Harry protested against it. Then she let him go and he headed up to Dumbledore’s office. 

He got some odd looks on his way up. No doubt due to his outlandish garb and perpetual smile. But it didn’t bother him. He’d gotten much worse judgment in Hell.

Dumbledore startled when he entered the room, but he recognized Harry instantly. Even though he was older, looked much different.

“Harry Potter…” Dumbledore stood, closing the book he’d just been reading. “Is that really you?”

Harry’s smile faltered, if only for a second, as he let his emotions hit him. He’d wanted to cry the second he saw Professor McGonagall. But he’d held it back. Now, with Dumbledore’s reaction on top of that, it was hard to maintain his smiling facade. 

“Good morning, Headmaster,” Harry greeted Dumbledore. “It’s been a while.”

“You disappeared only yesterday, Harry. What happened?”

Harry took a seat across from Dumbledore, prompting him to sit back down again as well. “It’s a long story, sir. I saw Professor McGonagall in the courtyard. She and a few others should be up shortly. Then I can explain it to you.”

Dumbledore steepled his fingers together, looking thoughtful. “I see. Well, how have you been, Harry?”

“I’ve been good, all things considered.”

“You look older than you did yesterday. How old are you now?”

Harry laughed bitterly. “I’m nearly fifty, actually.” 

Dumbledore choked on his spit. “FIFTY, you say?! My boy, you don’t look a day over twenty!”

“I died in 1933,” Harry clarified. “As I said, Headmaster, it’s quite a long story. I promise to tell the rest of it once everyone is assembled.”

As if beckoned by his words, the door to the office creaked open and Professor McGonagall stuck her head in.

“I’ve brought everyone here, Harry.” She swung the door open the rest of the way and a small flood of people entered the room. Some of them wrapped in bandages and looking like they’d come straight from the infirmary.

“HARRY!” Ron cried out, lunging at his friend and hugging him.

“You look… different,” Hermione noted.

Moody clapped him on the back, “You had us worried there, lad.”

“Gather round, everyone,” McGonagall directed. “I’m sure Harry has something to say about what’s happened to him.”

The group formed a loose semicircle in front of Harry, sitting on the edges of tables or on the floor. Harry took a look around, soaking in the sight of all the friends he hadn’t seen for nearly a hundred years. They looked bedraggled. Mad-Eye Moody looked crazed. Then again, there was never a time he didn’t look crazed. Remus Lupin had a twitch to his face and he looked like he was five seconds away from leaping forward and shaking Harry by the shoulders.

There was someone missing, though. Someone important. 

“Where’s Sirius?”

The mood got even more somber if that was possible. Everyone was avoiding his eyes, not daring to look at him. Harry had been around long enough to know what that meant.

“He’s gone, isn’t he?”

Hermione spoke up. “Harry, I’m sorry. It was Bellatrix. She-” Her voice broke and she didn’t seem able to finish her sentence.

“He fell through the veil,” Dumbledore said. “I’m truly sorry, my boy.”

Harry’s smile, the one he’d held for decades now, finally fell. He blinked at them, trying to process what they’d just said.

“It can’t be.” He’d expected changes when he went back to the human world, sure, but he hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t even found it to be a possibility. It’d never even crossed his mind to think that one of his companions DIDN’T make it out of the department of mysteries alive. Let alone to consider that Sirius would be the one not to make it out alive. He clutched at his staff a little harder, breaths coming out faster. 

Where was Sirius now? In Hell? There was no way. He wasn’t a bad person. Hadn’t committed the crimes that Harry had later in his life.

Harry’s grip on his cane tightened and he felt those tears he’d been holding back slip past his barriers. He wept. 

It was brief and he collected himself shortly after, looking up to the pitying gazes directed at him. He didn’t even bother wiping the tears off his face. 

“I disappeared yesterday,” Harry began, steeling himself to tell the story. “I disappeared yesterday and I was sent to the year 1900. I woke up and found myself in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the United States.”

“How is that possible?” Luna asked softly.

“A Portkey pulled out by one of the dementors. And the malfunctioning Time-Turners.” Harry smoothed out his pants, suddenly nervous to be telling his story.

“What happened after you woke up?” Ginny prodded.

“Let him speak. I’m sure all questions will be answered,” Professor McGonagall said. She gestured for Harry to continue his story.

“I met a witch named Nnena. She taught me wandless magic and she… she changed my life…”

The story carried on, with Harry putting on a small demonstration of the wandless magic he was now able to do. Professor McGonagall was most proud of him, praising him for his newfound abilities, even if they weren’t so newfound. He’d been doing it for years now, but to her it was new. 

“Nnena died. I vowed to dedicate the rest of my life to killing evil people. There was a rapist who wasn’t punished for his crimes. He was my first victim. I snuck in during the middle of the night. And I slit his throat.”

Everyone’s eyes widened. Luna covered her mouth. Harry almost felt bad. He knew how gentle of a soul Luna was. No doubt she disagreed with his methods, but it was more than fifty years in the past. There was nothing he could do to change it.

“He wasn’t the only one. I continued ridding the world of degenerates. But it drove me crazy. I began… eating some of them. That’s what landed me in Hell.”

Ginny looked sick to her stomach, more than the others, at least. Though they all looked varying degrees of disturbed.

“Once I was in hell, I used my knowledge of magic to rule over everyone. I had to wait until after the battle but, here I am.”

Dumbledore cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind my questions, Harry, how exactly did you die?”

“I got attacked by a pack of dogs,” Harry bit out angrily. “To be fair, however, I was getting old. I died in 1933 when I was forty-nine years old.”

“You don’t look forty-nine,” Ron noted.

“Of course not. Why would I choose to look forty-nine in Hell when I can be any age I want to be?”

He wasn’t the same person they’d known. He knew that much. But the sheer looks of disbelief on their faces made him pause. He’d never cared about reputation or what other people thought about them. But these weren’t average, everyday people. These were his friends. These were people he genuinely cared about. And suddenly the weight of his actions was hitting him.

Of course, they didn’t understand why he’d done what he’d done. He knew that killing people would make him crazy. But they didn’t.

Harry attempted to explain to them why he’d become a cannibal. But the more he explained, the more he felt like he was digging himself into a hole.

They seemed to understand, though. And when he’d finished telling his tales of his life, death, and after-life, he slumped back into his chair.

“So… are you back for good?” Hermione asked, hopeful. “I get why you took the actions you did, even if I don’t support them. I don’t want to lose you again, Harry.”

“We don’t want to lose you again,” Ron corrected.

Harry stared at them, stunned that his best friends would still support him after everything he’d done. 

“I’ve been gone for less than a day,” Harry blurted out.

Hermione stepped forward, hitting him lightly on the arm, “Well a day was too long. We don’t want to lose you forever.”

“Come here,” Luna beckoned him. Harry stood, walking to her.

She looked up at him, a strange look on her face. Then, she hugged him. Harry wasn’t ready for it. He certainly wasn’t ready for everyone else to join in too until he was in the center of a group hug.

“I’m sorry you went through all of that, Harry,” Luna said softly. 

Harry well and truly broke. He’d put on a facade for so long at this point. He’d had to be tough, living on his own and killing degenerates on the side. Then in Hell, he’d had never survived if he’d shown even a hint of weakness. But here, when he was home, he wasn’t expected to be a tough guy all the time. He wouldn’t be laughed at. He wouldn’t be mocked or taken advantage of. Here, he had nothing to fear.

And Harry let himself cry. For everything he’d gone through. For Nnena’s death, and Sirius’s too. He let the feelings wash over him, finally letting go of all the grief he’d been holding onto. 

He didn’t want to go back to Hell. He really didn’t. 

But rules were rules. He was a demon and he had no place in the mortal world. As much as he knew this, it still hurt to say goodbye.

Hermione and Ron walked him back to the little hill where he’d first arrived with Blitzo and crew. The imps seemed to have had a good time if the food piled in their arms was any measure to go by. 

“I’ll find a way to come back,” Harry promised his best friends. “I’ll help you defeat Voldemort. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been before.”

“Okay. Just remember to take care of yourself, too,” Hermione reminded him. 

“See us again soon, Harry,” Ron said, a bit tearful.

“I will. You guys take care, too. And when I come back next time, what do you say I show up with an army of demons to show Voldemort what real entertainment is?”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a commissioned work and will be updated based on the commissioner and their purchases. [Click here](https://linktr.ee/ZTNBooks) to visit my Fiverr and request a similar commission or a continuation of this work.


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